The Kingdoms: Natasha Pulley

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Already, this is an extremely artificial way of witholding information, but the worse part is that the protagonist reads one quarter of the letter, decides he is TOO OVERWHELMED to keep reading, and then puts it away and lets the plot happen for a few chapters. Then he feels good enough to try reading it again, takes it out and reads ANOTHER QUARTER before putting it away again. Rinse, repeat 4 times. As such, it takes us, the readers, an entire third or more of the book to actually learn all the information and context the letter provides us. Am I being pedantic about this? Perhaps. But unfortunately, this isn't the only basic detail Pulley gets wrong. For example, she is very fond of her warships firing chain shot, and in chapter 24 states that 'Chain shot was designed to punch through a ships hull'. It wasn't. It was designed specifically to destroy sails and rigging, which can be ascertained in about a minute or less just by googling it. And in chapter 28 we have tents marked with red medical crosses. This is in 1807, but the Red Cross didn't become a medical symbol until the Red Cross Society was founded in 1863. There is no explanation for how history could have changed enough to move that forward by half a century.

Once you see these problems, you start to wonder what else is wrong. The telegraph, for example, which plays a significant part in the plot. I don't know much about it - is what she says about it true or possible?

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The premise of this book is intriguing: what if the French had won the Battle of Trafalgar and occupied France for most of the 19th Century? Pulley paints a vivid picture of Britain under French rule and the battle scenes are truly outstanding, especially the brutal French conquest of London as the King and his cowardly entourage flee for Edinburgh. The scenes of the hardships of life on board a 19th century battleship are equally riveting. Pulley has clearly done her research. And in the middle of this whirl pool of emotions is Missouri Kite a man who so conflicted and damaged by life, fragile but also brutal, caring but withdrawn. He is a difficult man to love but in the end I did. Even though Joe doesn’t remember anything before his 43rd birthday, he feels an urgent sense of loss, something that wakes him up each night in a panic. And so when he receives a 93-year-old postcard asking him to come home, if he remembers, Joe is compelled to go to the Scottish lighthouse drawn on the front of the postcard, leaving his beloved daughter behind. You’re my family. You were family before any of them. I’ve missed you even when I didn’t remember you. The Kingdoms’ by Natasha Pulley proved a unique and fascinating novel; complete with wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey bits and inventive alternative histories. I complemented my reading with its unabridged audiobook edition for an immersive experience.

I said the premise of the book was good. Too bad after the first third the book abandons the premise and turns into what is ostensibly a roadtrip book. They spend their time pottering from place to place on a boat, taking part in shenanigans of all sorts in the past. The book does little to explore any of the sci-fi stuff that might come out of a premise like this. It also doesn't flesh out the worldbuilding needed to make it a satisfactory alternate history. Codega, Linda H. (19 February 2020). "Peering Into The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley". Tor.com . Retrieved 24 May 2021.

If you’ve ever read a book by Natasha Pulley, you probably already know that there’s this undercurrent of magic to her writing. And I don’t mean magic in a literal sense, although a lot of her books actually do have some magical elements to them. I mean the way she weaves her stories is magic. nothing draws me more to a book than one that can make me /feel/. pulley went above and beyond that, making me feel a symphony of emotion. she wrapped her hand around my heart and yanked. A history-based time travel adventure/romance, taking place in Great Britain around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The story drew me in so I wanted to read faster to find out what happened but also to read more slowly so it would never end. Eilean Mor hat sofort was bei mir klingeln lassen und mich an das Buch "Die Leuchtturmwärter" von Emma Stonex denken lassen. Denn es ist genau dieser Leuchtturm, der auch in dieser Geschichte eine Rolle spielt. Denn dort sind im Jahr 1900 tatsächlich drei Wärter auf mysteriöse Weise verschwunden und auch Natasha Pulley bindet dieses Ereignis gekonnt in ihren Roman mit ein.